


The Frozen Heart

by greygerbil



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: AU prompt, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Day 5, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 10:06:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13568340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Valiant Prince Victor has been cursed to stay on a frozen lake for the rest of eternity. Many have tried to free him, but none have succeeded. Now the young knight Yuuri wants to repay an old debt and save the hero of the Northern Kingdom who he has admired for so long.





	The Frozen Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Victuuri Week 2018. The Prompt is "AU: Fantasy".

_In the faraway kingdom by the Northern Sea, King Yakov and his wife Queen Lilia live with their three sons. Their youngest, Prince Yuri, is just a knave of fifteen winters, but he has already proven his mettle striking down more monsters than many knights face in their whole lives. Their next-oldest son, Prince Georgi, fell into a river when he was a boy. He disappeared in the roaring stream in spring and when he returned in autumn, long thought dead, his parents found that the drowned maidens had taught him magic. The most famous of their sons, however, is the crown prince Victor. People say that he is no less brave than the fabled knight Ilya Muromets. Among his many deeds, he has beaten back a whole pack of werewolves at the city gates, captured the firebird and freed the soul of a mavka._

_However, his doom came in the form of Baba Yaga. Prince Victor’s great deeds displeased the old witch and she waited for an opportunity to stop his meddling. One winter, it came to pass that Prince Victor was dancing on the ice as he liked to do. The witch came to the frozen lake when the prince played on it and put a terrible curse on him: she cast eternal winter over the lake and turned Prince Victor into an ice statue which would remain captured there for all times, and any who stepped on the ice with him would suffer the same fate. Prince Georgi tried to break the spell, but his powers were no match for those of the witch, who is rumoured to be as old as the forest she lives in. Though he managed to turn his brother human again, he could not unfreeze the lake or make it so that Prince Victor could leave it, for his heart is still of ice and connects him to the cursed place. This is where he still is and some people say that this is where he will be for all eternity, dancing on the ice._

Yuuri knew the story by heart, had asked every bard he’d met in the last year to tell it to him and weighed and compared each embellished sentence in all their different versions against each other. As he rode his horse through the young firs at the edge of the forest now and saw the fabled lake stretched out in front of him, snow and ice glittering in the summer sun, he felt for a moment like he was daydreaming. It had been a weeks-long journey from home in which he had repeated the tale to himself again and again and suddenly he stood here, part of the story.

In the middle of the frozen lake was Prince Victor, gliding along on boots mounted on sharpened steel blades as easily as a fish moved in the water. When Yuuri had last seen him, he had been twelve and Prince Victor sixteen, already far from home on an adventure in the lands Yuuri hailed from. Yuuri’s first glimpse of him had been Prince Victor’s gently smiling face as the body of the jorougumo that had wrapped her spider-webs around Yuuri’s body to prepare him for eating had collapsed, Prince Victor’s sword deep in her back, her eight legs twitching and trashing.

Prince Victor had had eyes blue like the deep sea and hair blond like the sun then, but both had been drained of colour by the ice in his heart and now his long hair looked like pale storm clouds and his eyes were the blue of a winter sky. In his white mantle, he looked like the beautiful spirit of someone who’d died on a cold night.

On a turn in his idle dance, Prince Victor spotted Yuuri standing by the side of the lake and stopped. Yuuri’s hands tightened around his horse’s reins. The smile on Prince Victor’s lips was the same as the one Yuuri remembered from all those years ago as the prince came closer.

“Hello there. Who are you?” Prince Victor asked.

“My name is Yuuri. I am here to free you,” Yuuri said, trying to sound like he actually believed he could do it.

Prince Victor looked him up and down.

“Have we met before, Yuuri? You wear armour like the knights of the island kingdoms far east and yet you seem familiar.”

“You saved me once, many years ago. I am here to repay that debt.”

“It’s not a debt, young knight, but if you can get me off the ice, then I would be very happy.” Prince Victor leaned against a stone jutting out of the frozen surface of the lake. “However, you should know many have failed before you. My brothers, Sir Christophe from the Westernlands, Lady Sala of the City by the Fiery Mountain, Lord Jayjay from across the Great Stream... those are just some who have tried. None of them could do it and a few have gotten themselves in a lot of trouble.”

“So I’ve heard,” Yuuri said with a nod. “Still, even if I’m not as good a knight as them, I think it’s my duty to try.”

“I just want to warn you that it’s dangerous,” Prince Victor clarified, brushing a strand of silver hair out of his face. “If you can do it, you’ll have my eternal gratitude – and, as my father has promised my saviour, my hand in marriage and with it the kingdom when I ascend to the throne.”

This rumour had indeed made it back to Yuuri’s home, too, and it had sent quite a few fortune-seekers on their journey northwards. Yuuri’s face grew red as he saw Prince Victor’s bemused grin.

“I… That’s not what I’m here for. I just want to help you.”

Though perhaps it would be too much said that he had not sometimes imagined on the long ride what it would be like to lead the prince off the ice and to the altar.

“Oh. Too bad,” Prince Victor said with a blithe, heart-shaped smile. “If you would like some advice, you can talk to my brothers. They might give you a hint where to start and every knight who tries to help me is granted shelter in the castle. If you follow the main road, you will get there before nightfall.”

“Thank you, Prince Victor.”

What an, extraordinary man he was, Yuuri thought, that after a year and another half on a frozen lake, Prince Victor still had the spirit to joke with a stranger. Yuuri watched him move away and saw that the lines his skates made on the lake’s frozen surface disappeared almost as soon as they were etched into it, the ice everlasting, unbreakable. For a moment longer he looked at the way his hair and his cloak billowed around his tall, slender body in the wind before he turned his horse towards the road.

-

“You can’t be a very good knight if people know my name better than yours, considering how much younger I am than you.”

Prince Yuri sent him a derisive glance as he drew his dagger across the whetstone.

“Well, I’m not from around here,” Yuuri attempted, standing awkwardly in the door to Prince Yuri’s room.

“People know my oldest brother’s name where you come from, right? So that doesn’t matter. I’ve never heard of you. My brother obviously needs a great warrior to help him and you’re nobody,” Prince Yuri declared. “I think you’re wasting everyone’s time. And what kind of knight wears glasses, anyway? How can you even fight?”

“I need them to see,” Yuuri said, plaintively, pushing up the steel-rimmed glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. They were not very handy, but looking like a scholar who had gotten lost on a battlefield was worth the trade-off of actually seeing his enemies.

Yuri did not deign to answer, but turned back to his blade and didn’t look up again. Swallowing, Yuuri turned away and left him to his work. He was just young and impulsive and worried about his brother, Yuuri told himself. He shouldn’t let it get to him even if his own deeds had never been so grand that the tales travelled beyond his own home country. Surely that didn’t mean he had no chance at all?

-

Prince Georgi looked no more convinced that Yuuri would be useful than his younger brother did, but at least he waved him into his chambers when Yuuri asked for his help. As he moved through the room, Yuuri found himself taking sidelong glances at Prince Georgi’s face. The skin of his lips and around his eyes was a bruised shade of purple blue, like he had been in the cold water for hours and hours. The tales said that the rusalki, the drowned maidens, had taken him in as a child. Was that a result of that time spent with them?

With a somewhat affectedly measured glance at Yuuri, Prince Georgi crossed his arms over his chest.

“The other knights and lords already tried their best to find any item that could break a curse, but none would help. However, I’ve spoken to Vasilisa the Beautiful and the Mistress of the Copper Mountain and we think that maybe the Lady Midday could help. I don’t know how you would convince her, though. You’re just as likely to get your head cut off.”

Yuuri swallowed. Well, he had guessed this wasn’t going to be easy or all the heroes who had attempted it would have long freed Prince Victor.

“Where could I look for Lady Midday?”

“Everywhere. Poludnitsa likes the fields. She enjoys tormenting farmers, the old witch,” Prince Georgi huffed. “You’re most likely to meet her when the midday sun is at its highest point and you won’t ever see her at night.”

Noting down the details in his memory, Yuuri nodded his head.

“What does she look like?”

“She’ll either be a young girl, a beautiful maiden, or an old woman.”

It seemed to Yuuri that Prince Georgi took some enjoyment of raising the tension with this answer. The dramatic seemed to suit him, but he did take pity on Yuuri staring at him in confusion after a moment.

“However, she carries a large scythe. That should make her distinctive at this time of year around the fields. It’s not harvest time for another few months.”

“And how can she help?”

“She is a creature of heat, so she would be an obvious choice to combat ice, but she doesn’t like humans very much and as I said, she might try to kill you instead. She might succeed. It’s just an idea, to be honest,” Prince Georgi admitted.

“That’s fine. I’ll find a way,” Yuuri said. Maybe it was just an idea, but it was one more idea than he’d had before coming here.

-

The first day of Yuuri’s search proved fruitless. He wandered from morning ‘til evening through the fields of young green wheat that surrounded the walls of the capital city, but if Lady Midday was around, Yuuri didn’t see her. After the sun finally sank after long hours of heat on a cloudless June day, Yuuri jumped onto the back of his horse and rode down the way to the lake.

Approaching it felt like stepping into a painting. Where summer had made the meadows green and dotted them with colourful flowers, Prince Victor’s prison was bordered by naked bushes and a circle of snow. Though the ice glinted like burnished bronze in the evening sun, Yuuri shivered with the cold as he stepped up to the bank.

Prince Victor, standing at the other side of the lake with his gaze turned towards the forest, seemed to have heard Yuuri’s boots crunch on the snow. He turned and, fast as a falcon, dove towards him.

“Yuuri, it’s good to see you, but don’t come any closer.”

“Yes, of course.”

Yuuri stopped. If he got cursed, too, then he wouldn’t be of any use to Prince Victor.

“My brothers haven’t talked you out of it, then?” Prince Victor asked.

“Well – Prince Yuri tried, I think,” Yuuri admitted. “He doesn’t think I have a chance.”

“Don’t take Yuri’s words to heart. He’s a sad child because his brother is gone... and he’s also a grown man hurt in his pride as a knight because he hasn’t managed to free me himself,” Victor said with a chuckle. “The in-between years will bring that kind of attitude.”

The words, and Prince Victor’s apparent trust despite Prince Yuri’s doubts, soothed Yuuri a little.

“Prince Georgi told me I should find the Lady Midday because she might know some magic to free you, so that’s what I’ll do.”

Pushing a long strand of silver hair behind his ear, Prince Victor nodded his head.

“That’s not a bad idea, but I don’t know if I want you to attempt it, Yuuri. You’re not from around these parts, so I must warn you: Poludnitsa’s scythe is not just for cutting grass and its said she can turn people mad with a glance.”

“So I have heard,” Yuuri said, a shiver running down his spine. “I can’t leave you here on the ice, though.”

“I told you that you don’t owe me.”

“I know, but…” Yuuri let his eyes take in the whole of the lake once more. As night fell slowly around them, the forest that bordered the water turned into a black wall and the ice that had glimmered under the sun became dim and dark. Only Prince Victor’s white mantle still reflected the light of the moon. “It looks very lonely. I can’t imagine anyone staying out here by themselves all the time. I can’t let that happen.”

Prince Victor’s ice-eyed gaze on him softened.

“I do get visitors, but Georgi says I won’t age with a heart of ice. I wonder what would happen if I stayed here until everyone forgot about the things I have done when I was free and the people I knew died and the world moved on without me…” His voice grew quieter and then stopped entirely and he shook his head and showed Yuuri that heart-shaped smile again. “Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

“No!” Yuuri said, surprising himself with his vehemence. “I’ll free you. I promise, Prince Victor!”

“I believe you,” Prince Victor said. “But you should head for the castle now. You only get to see Poludnitsa in sunlight, after all, so use the night to rest. I wouldn’t want you to be tired when you face her.”

Reluctantly, Yuuri nodded his head. Going to the castle meant leaving Prince Victor behind and seeing him here as the sunlight vanished, that felt almost cruel.

“Farewell, brave knight. If you meet my dog Makkachin, pet him for me. We won’t let him come here because if he runs on the ice, the curse would get him, too.”

“I will,” Yuuri said with a small smile as he swung himself into the saddle. Trotting down the road, he found himself looking again and again over his shoulder at the figure that stood still in the moonlight on the ice, a bright spot against the black, jagged shape of the forest in his back.

-

For three weeks, Yuuri searched the fields for Poludnitsa, and three weeks he saw no hint of her even in the glare of the hottest midday sun. Prince Yuri made disparaging remarks every time they bumped into each other in the castle hallways and the king and queen seemed to take no heed of Yuuri aside from polite greetings. Prince Georgi rode out into the forest to meet with other witches and creatures Yuuri preferred not to think about to talk of other ways to break the curse. It was clear enough to Yuuri that none of them believed that he could actually help the crown prince.

Despite how shameful his lack of success was, Yuuri visited Prince Victor every evening. As long as he could not help him, he could at least try to alleviate his loneliness. Prince Victor would tell stories of his deeds when prompted by Yuuri, who knew all the tales just from bards and books, and he would make Yuuri speak of his own successes, though Yuuri thought his adventures all paled in comparison. He also asked Yuuri about his family and his home and a hundred things and never seemed to tire when listening to him.

“She’s elusive, Lady Midday, until she hits you in the neck and you feel her touch for days,” Prince Victor told him one evening and Yuuri wondered if his growing dejectedness had shown through.

“I wonder if I’m doing something wrong,” he admitted, kicking up the snow that laid like powder on the summer meadow at the edge of Prince Victor’s frozen jail.

“I don’t think anyone else would know how to do it better, either. You’re searching so diligently that you must find her eventually,” the prince answered.

When he said it like that, Yuuri could almost believe it.

-

Noon was over and Yuuri was following his usual route around the old farms by the mountains, barely consciously searching anymore, when he saw a glint of metal in the fields. Turning just because the flash in the corner of his eyes surprised him, he spotted a girl wearing a simple brown hemp dress without shoes or even a ribbon in her thick blond hair. As she lifted her head, Yuuri felt his stomach seize at the look in her merciless poison green eyes. The scythe she carried was twice as tall as her, but she held it as easily as if it were a flower.

Yuuri’s heart jumped into his throat. He stopped dead by the side of the road.

“Poludnitsa?” he asked, willing his voice not to shake.

“I heard you were looking for me, stranger,” she answered in a full-grown woman’s voice. “Now what is a man like you doing so far away from home searching for me? You better answer truthfully or it’s your head.”

As she stepped out into the unpaved road, dust clouds sprang up around her feet from nowhere. Yuuri steadied himself. He’d never spoken to a being as powerful as Poludnitsa before, but he was not going to throw away this opportunity.

“I’ve come to ask you to free Prince Victor from Baba Yaga’s curse,” he said.

The girl tapped the end of her scythe against the hard earth.

“I could, but why would I do that? I have nothing to do with the prince or the old crone.”

Yuuri had been prepared for this answer. He bowed his head, though not very deeply because he was worried she might take it as an invitation to take a swing with her scythe.

“If you help me, I can help you. Just tell me what you need me to do and I’ll do it for you.”

“Why would I want anything from a human?”

Yuuri bit his tongue and kept quiet. If she weren’t interested at all, she’d have turned away, wouldn’t she? So he waited.

The girl kicked up some more dust out of thin air.

“There may be something, but I doubt you can do it.”

This was the attitude with which most people had greeted him here in the Northlands, aside from Prince Victor, and it had not deterred Yuuri yet.

“Give me a chance,” he begged.

“Very well. Here is your task: Find my shears at the bottom of the Crescent Lake in the forest – I dropped them there once and haven’t felt like getting them back yet. With those, climb up these mountains,” she pointed at the hills and spires in the distance, “and cut the white flower that blooms only at night. I never get to see it because I move with the sun. Only cut the flower with those shears because otherwise it will wilt before I can have it. Then, get me a round stone from the abandoned coal mines in the east. I want to carve it and make it into a vase. And _you_ must get these things with your own hands. This is our deal alone.”

Yuuri could barely keep up with the list of demands as she rattled them off and her smug smile showed that she was well-aware of this. The Crescent Lake, the mountains behind the city, the abandoned coal mines in the east… it was a lot, but at least it was finally something he could tackle.

“As you wish,” Yuuri said with a nod. “I will get all that for you. Thank you, Lady Midday.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” the girl said and with that, she vanished into a cloud of dust.

-

“Before you go, take this.”

Prince Georgi reached under the black fur collar of his purple mantle and took out a golden pendant on a leather band which he pulled over his head. Before he held it to Yuuri, he flicked the locket open with his thumb and, frowning, dug out a small, pencil-drawn portrait of a woman that he crumpled in his hand and then pocketed anyway. Yuuri waited for him to be finished before he asked: “What is it?”

“The rusalki gave this locket to me when I was young. If you wear it, they probably won’t try to drown you immediately,” Prince Georgi said flatly. “Of course, when you take something that lies in their lake, they’ll rightly think you’re stealing… you’ll have to be quick.”

Staring at the dark surface of the water lying in the shadow of the fir trees, Yuuri nodded his head.

“I’ll draw off as many of them as I can into the river, but some never leave the Crescent Lake,” Prince Georgi went on.

The locket was cold against Yuuri’s fingers when he touched it, like a stone that had laid in a stream, even though the prince had worn it against his chest. Yuuri looked at him again. The shadowy light of the forest made his discoloured skin look almost a dead black.

“Prince Georgi, why didn’t the rusalki drown you?” Yuuri found himself asking, hoping he could glean anymore knowledge of these strange creatures before he faced them, or perhaps just delaying the inevitable task of visiting them. “I heard they do it to any man that comes too close to their waters. Was it because you were so young?”

For a moment, Prince Georgi narrowed his eyes at him.

“Who said they didn’t?” he asked and turned his horse around. “Don’t you know there’s a price to pay for magic? Whether you use it or someone uses it on you, it always leaves a mark.”

Yuuri could not suppress a shudder as he watched him vanish between the trees, but he shook off the fear that was trying to grip him. No, he could not let disquiet overtake him, he had to get to the bottom of the lake no matter what. When he didn’t hear the sound of the hooves of Prince Georgi’s horse anymore, Yuuri unlatched the heavier parts of his armour and stacked them up in the grass, leaving him only in his robe and hakama. He placed his sword next to where he had tied his own horse to the tree, but kept his dagger at his belt in case he needed to defend himself against the drowned maidens.

The lake was cold as ice as Yuuri dipped in his feet. He saw nothing move under the surface. Smooth stones clicked under his feet as he waded in to his knees and then took the plunge forward.

Without his glasses, he could not see very far, and he had feared that the dark lake would only exacerbate this problem, leaving him fumbling in the mud to find the shears. However, there were lights on the bottom of the lake that he hadn’t seen from above.

Yuuri swam until he was atop the lights and then went up to breathe. He might be moving right into a nest, but it was still his best bet to find the shears. After another big gulp of air, he dove once more.

At first he didn’t see the rusalki even with the strange glowing plants to help him. Their long hair moved just like algae, their bodies were still like stones and their thin fingers could have been old sticks. They were unmoving like statues as he moved among them and when one actually turned her head to track Yuuri’s movement, he thought his heart would stop. However, the right of passage that Prince Georgi’s pendant seemed to grant him kept them peaceful as they sat there at the ground of the lake.

Yuuri had to come up for air twice before he saw the shears, which were big and completely unstained by rust or dirt. They laid on top of a heap of baubles: rings, wristbands, necklaces. Yuuri dipped deeper and took hold of them.

He had never heard a cry underwater before and the indignation and cold anger he recognised in it made him feel like the ice water around him now spread in his veins. Suddenly, the rusalki sprang into motion. Yuuri rushed upward, his heart pounding, paddling as fast as he could with one hand blocked by the heavy shears. He had no hand free to reach for the dagger if he wanted to keep swimming – how hadn’t he thought of that before?! –, so when something wrapped around his ankle, he could only kick with his free foot. His heel hit what felt like someone’s nose and he escaped the slippery grasp, but he heard water splashing behind him even as he came up gasping for air.

As soon as his feet hit ground raising towards the bank, Yuuri ran, stumbling in the water. There were still voices screaming behind him as he sprinted for his horse and cut the rope on which he had tied it to the tree with the shears. Sparing no moment to pick up his things, but with the shears still clutched in his hand, he jumped on the horse’s back and rammed his naked feet into its sides.

Yuuri rode and rode until he burst out of the underbrush and found that he had unknowingly led his horse to Prince Victor’s frozen lake. The noise alerted the Prince and he turned to stare at Yuuri, who was dripping wet and out of breath. The forest behind him was quiet – he’d escaped. The rush of relief was so powerful that Yuuri would have collapsed sideways out of the saddle with just a little less self-control.

Yuuri pulled his glasses out of the saddle bag where he had stored them so he could see Prince Victor as more than a shape.

“Yuuri, what happened? Did you go to the Crescent Lake like you said you would?” Prince Victor asked.

“Yes… I – I have the shears that Lady Midday asked me to get.”

As he sat there in front of the fearless knight Prince Victor in damp clothes with algae sticking to his skin and his armour lost in the woods because he hadn’t been brave enough to face the rusalki, the joy over his flight dispersed and Yuuri felt foolish.

Prince Victor, however, clapped his hands.

“Amazing!” he declared. “You will get me off this lake after all, Yuuri.”

Amidst the fear and relief and shame, Yuuri had barely considered anymore that he was holding the first piece of the puzzle to freeing Victor. He gave him a shaky smile.

When Yuuri arrived at the castle later that night, he knocked at the door to Prince Georgi’s chamber, the cold locket in hand. The prince opened the door wide when he saw Yuuri. Behind him on table laid the pieces of Yuuri’s armour, his shoes and his sword.

“The rusalki told me a thief had evaded them just barely. I figured you might have left something behind escaping them,” Prince Georgi explained.

“Th-thank you,” Yuuri muttered, awkwardly lowering his gaze. “I got the shears.”

Though he expected to be mocked for his cowardly behaviour, when he looked up, Prince Georgi smiled at him for the first time.

“The rusalki don’t usually let men leave their waters. I didn’t think you could do it,” he said. “We may have all underestimated you.”

-

If Yuuri had thought his second task would be easy in comparison to the first, he was quickly taught better by the tales of the locals. The Spear Peaks that guarded the city from the south were notoriously difficult to move past and, as King Yakov told it, the flowers that bloomed at night only grew at the very top.

“It’ll take days to get there,” the king said. “Most who attempt the climb give up or die falling.”

“Well, Georgi can’t help you with that one,” Prince Yuri scoffed. Yuuri had been invited by Prince Georgi to eat supper at the royal table and had been seated next to the youngest prince, who was pointedly not looking at him. “Nor can anyone else here. I doubt you’ll be able to do it.”

Yuuri just smiled at him. If there was one thing he would say for himself, it was that he did not lack for vigour. He might not get any help – but in this case, he didn’t think he would need it.

-

It was a long climb up the Spear Peaks and they honoured their harsh name. Sharp flint stone cut Yuuri’s hands when the paths were lost among rubble and bushes and the way was so steep he could only crawl. Snowflakes bit his skin and the wind almost beat him off the mountainside a few times.

Yet, Yuuri persevered. What else could he do? Prince Victor had placed his hopes in him, he would not disappoint him.

For seven days and seven nights, Yuuri climbed. When he had reached the top, snow swirled around him with every gust of wind and made the ground slippery. Night fell as he wandered, but he kept on, holding on tightly to a brass lantern he had taken on his journey.

He wouldn’t have needed it. The white flower looked like a star that had fallen to the ground, shining even there. For a moment, Yuuri just stared at it, then he grabbed the shears from his bag and carefully cut it just where the stem plunged above the blanket of snow.

The way down was no shorter than the way up and not much less dangerous, especially with a flower to protect from bending or breaking, but Yuuri’s heart felt light as a feather and he thought he moved twice as fast. When he arrived at the base of the Spear Mountains again, he still had energy left over to all but run back to the castle. There, he placed the flower and the shears in his chamber before he took his horse out of the stables and rode down the by now well-known road to the frozen lake.

Prince Victor spotted him from afar and moved towards him across the ice. As Yuuri dismounted, his greeting died on his tongue. He saw that Prince Victor’s eyes were glassy with tears and it looked like it took everything for him not to let them spill over his cheeks. Yuuri’s heart sank.

“Prince Victor?”

Yuuri halted at the bank of the lake, so tempted to jump onto the ice and embrace him. However, Prince Victor forced a smile.

“Yuuri, you really frightened me. I thought you had died in the Spear Mountains,” he said, his voice raspy.

“It just took a while to get to the top!” Yuuri was quick to assure him. “I got the flower. Everything is fine.”

“No, it’s not,” Prince Victor said, blinking tears away, mouth twisted in frustration. “I wish you wouldn’t have to do all these dangerous things for me. You’ve already done more than enough to deserve a prince and a kingdom,” he added with a rueful smile.

“You have risked your life for many people, too,” Yuuri reminded him.

They stood as close as they could now, Prince Victor’s shoes almost at the bank, but there were still a few feet of snow between them, just enough that if they reached out, they would not be able to touch each other’s hands. Once more, Yuuri resisted the temptation to ignore the curse.

“Only one more task,” Yuuri said.

“Yes. Then you can name whatever reward you want from me, Yuuri, on top of those my father would grant you.”

“I wouldn’t make you marry me,” Yuuri was quick to assure him again.

“What if I wanted to?” Prince Victor gave back.

Yuuri could feel the blood rush to his head. “I… first I have to free you!”

Though the tears still hung at the corners of his eyes, Prince Victor chuckled.

-

The last of his tasks had sounded like the least daunting; finding a loose rock big enough to be made into a vase for a single flower should prove easy enough in an old mine. However, Yuuri had feared there was a catch and Prince Yuri was the one who told him of it: strigoi, a whole nest of them. The old eastern mine was their home and without the help of Prince Victor, the king’s soldiers hadn’t yet managed to clean it out.

“I could go during the day?” Yuuri asked somewhat hopefully.

“Don’t you think we’ve tried that, fool?” Prince Yuri snapped. “They wake up very easily and the cave is dark, so they can fight you there. They are all collected there in the daylight hours. If you must try it, do it at night. That’s when most of them will be out on the hunt.”

Yuuri decided to heed the advice, even if Prince Yuri did make him feel like he wouldn’t be too sad if Yuuri ended up speared on strigoi fangs. By midnight, he walked up the old path to the abandoned mine. Grass had grown thick between the stones that had once been laid to form the road. The canyon between the hills was just broad enough for three men to walk abreast. It led out onto a round space hewn into the hillsides before the entrance of the mine, maybe once used to collect the latest yields before they were brought into the city.

Yuuri had donned his full set of armour and approached with his sword already drawn. His horse was waiting for him half a mile down the hills hidden in a copse of trees. He might need it to flee, but if the strigoi attacked it first, it would die before him, so this seemed like the best option to him.

The cave entrance was open and the moon full so that there was a little light as Yuuri stepped into the wide hall. All he needed was one big stone to put into the leather bag he had brought. It should be no problem because there were heaps of them all over the place and Yuuri only had to swallow his nausea and grab one, even if blood-stained broken bones and tufts of human hair were strewn among the stones.

Slowly and quietly, Yuuri inched over and picked up an especially round stone, very careful not to disturb those around it. A pebble started to roll, but he caught it before it could hit the ground or make any others move. Yuuri deposited the stone in his bag, breathing out in relief as he stepped back from the precarious heap.

Something cracked loud under his right heel, the sound reverberating through the hall. Yuuri stared down to see a human thigh bone lie broken under his shoe and then raised his gaze to find several pairs of red eyes gleaming in the darkness further down the mine shaft.

The first strigoi was on him before he even had a chance to turn to the entrance, but that was probably for the best. Had the hairless, grey creature jumped on his back, Yuuri doubted he could have kept its fangs out of his neck. This way, he brandished his katana just in time, slashing it across the creature’s chest. It reeled back with a howl that stopped the other two in their tracks, lurking on all fours in the back. Sadly, they seemed to be too smart to throw themselves directly into his blade again, but at least their hesitation gave Yuuri a chance to back out of the mine as the strigoi stalked closer.

They set upon him again when he was outside, distracted for a moment as he had to find the entrance to the small canyon that led away from the round field before the cave. He evaded a maw snapping at his hand and dodged the second strigoi lunging for him, slitting its side with his blade, but he caught the claws of one creature swatting at his arm, ripping through this armoured sleeve and leaving bloody streaks in his skin.

Yuuri grit his teeth. He could see more strigoi crawling out of the cave entrance now. With the pommel of his sword, he hit one of the creatures in the bald head and then stumbled backwards, still swinging his katana at them as they tried to get closer. It was no good. At this rate, they would overwhelm him soon.

As fast and sudden as a shooting star, a burning arrow hit a strigoi in the chest, making him squeal and the others burst apart in all directions. Yuuri turned in time to see three riders standing in the canyon.

“Get up!”

Prince Yuri reached down from his horse, pulling at Yuuri’s arm and Yuuri took hold the saddle, swinging his leg over the back of Prince Yuri’s horse. The two other riders were a red-haired woman and a man in plate-armour that looked entirely foreign to Yuuri. The man lit up the front of the arrow on the lady knight’s drawn bow with a torch before she shot it. Yuri stabbed with his spear at a strigoi trying to claw his horse, leaving a deep hole in its stomach, before he gave the order for them all to turn tail.

Yuuri had just enough time to tell them of the horse he’d hidden in the copse; then, it was a dash towards the city, always with red eyes at their heels. The strigoi seemed to fear the reinforced, guarded city walls, though, and as the gate rattled shut behind them, Prince Yuri stopped his horse and turned around to Yuuri with a frown.

“These are Lady Mila, my cousin, and Sir Otabek. I figured we would need more than one good knight to take anything from the strigoi and you aren’t one, so I brought reinforcements for myself,” he said with a sneer.

“He also said you’re his brother’s best bet and he wouldn’t let you die,” Lady Mila informed Yuuri with a smile.

Yuuri could do nothing but laugh. He bowed deeply in his saddle even as Prince Yuri turned around to spew insults at his cousin.

“Thank you all for your help.”

The weight of the stone was still on his back and Yuuri could not wait for the sun to rise again and bring Lady Midday out into the open.

-

“This is it?”

Prince Victor leaned in as close as he could. In Yuuri’s hand laid a golden metal circle on a leather band, a medallion that was warm against his skin and seemed to shine from within.

“Yes. Lady Midday says any human alive can break the curse with this,” Yuuri answered.

The prince was brimming with excitement.

“How does it work?” he asked, urgently.

“She wouldn’t tell me that,” Yuuri admitted. He should have asked Prince Georgi, but he’d been so exhilarated he’d ridden straight for the frozen lake.

“Ah, these creatures never do,” Prince Victor answered with a brief smile.

“I suppose you have to hold it, since the curse is laid upon you, after all. Here!”

Yuuri threw the golden medal and Victor caught with both hands. However, as soon as his fingers wrapped around it, the medal lost its shine. It looked like any other piece of gold metal in his hands and the lake under his feet was as cold and hard as ever.

“Why doesn’t it work?!” Prince Victor asked, distraught. “You can’t have gone through all this for nothing!”

His mind racing, Yuuri recalled once more what Lady Midday had told him. _Any human alive…_

“Prince Victor… you said it’s true your heart is made of ice?” he asked slowly.

“Yes,” Prince Victor said, looking up. “I can always feel it. It’s very cold.”

“So it doesn’t beat, right? Then maybe right now, you are not a living human.”

“Oh…” Prince Victor looked down at the medal in his hand, silver lashes hiding the look in his eyes. “But then how can the curse be broken?”

“I think I know how,” Yuuri said.

With those words, he walked across the snow.

“Wait – Yuuri, no! If you come any closer, you will be cursed, too!”

But maybe not if he was fast enough. Yuuri surged forward, barrelling into Victor, who barely managed to keep them standing on the ice. He seized hold of the medallion even as he could feel the cold creeping up his legs, pressing the metal against Victor’s shoulder. The bright light that broke suddenly from the medal forced Yuuri to close his eyes and he almost dropped the metal disk as it grew as hot as burning coal in his hand.

They were suspended in this explosion of light for a moment and then it was gone and the ground under their feet vanished. With a splash, Yuuri fell into the lake and Prince Victor with him. They broke the surface gasping and spitting water.

“Prince Victor…”

Yuuri looked at him and felt his heart constrict. The lake had not a patch of ice on it and flowers grew on the banks, but Victor’s hair was still silver and his eyes that icy blue.

“Did it work?” Yuuri asked, anxiously.

Instead of giving an answer, Prince Victor pulled Yuuri’s hand over his heart. He could feel the steady beat in Prince Victor’s chest.

“Oh yes,” Yuuri said, remembering Prince Georgi’s words with a surge of relief. “Magic just leaves scars.”

“Yes. I would bet on you, too,” Prince Victor said and tapped Yuuri’s other hand still clutching the medal. As he unfolded his fingers, he noticed they stiff, were more difficult to move than before. The skin that had touched the medal looked scarred like it had been burned some time ago, smooth and twisted.

“It’s worth it,” Yuuri decided.

Prince Victor pushed wet strands of long silver hair out of his face before he leaned forward and kissed Yuuri.

-

They rode to the castle on Yuuri’s horse, Prince Victor’s arms clasped around his middle, and Yuuri delivered him into the arms of his family. His parents embraced him before they went on to thank Yuuri. Prince Georgi cried. Prince Yuri complained that Prince Victor was still damp as he hugged him, yet did not try to get away. Makkachin almost knocked Prince Victor over.

While the king had a feast prepared to celebrate the return of his son, Prince Victor took Yuuri’s hand and pulled him aside into the royal gardens. Yuuri had not taken note of them in all his time here – he’d been so focused on his tasks he’d not spent a moment to admire the colourful flowers and trees heavy with still-green fruit and lush leaves like green clouds.

“Now that such a valiant knight has won my hand, we must go on adventures together,” Prince Victor said with a smile. “I want to return to the country you come from sometime. I remember it was beautiful. Prince Yuri has already told me there’s work for us to do in the eastern coal mines and Baba Yaga needs to be put in her place, of course. We will barely have time for the wedding!” He chuckled. “I can’t wait. Thank you for giving me my life back.”

“Well, I…” Under so much praise, Yuuri could only blush, and then he stammered: “A-are you really going to marry me?”

Prince Victor laughed at that and squeezed Yuuri’s burned hand.

“Lady Midday struck you mad after all if you think I’ll let you go again unless you tell me you want to leave me now,” he said.

No, he didn’t, and Yuuri didn’t think such a day would ever come, not in fifty years, or a hundred, or ever after that.


End file.
